


Talents

by ItsaVikingThing



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, But not my fluffiest either!, F/F, Like there are some jokes too because it's Chloe, Not quite grim dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22057819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsaVikingThing/pseuds/ItsaVikingThing
Summary: Some would call what Chloe can do a talent. It's a talent that means death for anyone and anything that gets too close to her, so it's a talent that's in demand.Then one day King Prescott's man gives Chloe a mission unlike any other: to kill a work of magic, and the person who worked it. It sets Chloe on a familiar path, one bound to end in destruction. But along the way, she finds someone who offers her something more valuable and more dangerous than a king's regard: hope.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Comments: 22
Kudos: 48





	Talents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been picking away at this for months. I was going to try to do it as a one shot when it was all done, but New Year seemed like a good time to set this one, thematically speaking. So...Happy New Year!

Chloe has a talent, the sort of talent that is spoken of in whispers and finds service in the employ of nobles and other people with access to more money than empathy. So it isn't much of a surprise to her when King Prescott's man finally tracks her down in a foul pit of a tavern in the worst part of Arcadia City.

She watches him through nearly closed eyes as he approaches her table. His name is Wells, and he's some kind of noble functionary, filling a role that Chloe has never been close enough to court to work out. He's a tall man, black skinned and imposing. The look of disapproval on his face over finding Chloe sprawled on a bench beside a jug of ale isn't convincing. He has broken veins in his cheek that speak to a love of the bottle that has fermented into an obsession. Chloe would wager good silver that he drank at least one cup of wine before he sought her out.

Chloe supposes it's the squalor of their surroundings that bothers him, that keeps him standing over Chloe in the dingiest corner of the tavern, where she's trying to get drunk enough that the taste of the cheap ale she's drinking won't make her gag anymore.

Wells is wearing grey silk, so that's reason enough not to sit. It's reason enough for Wells to stay out of this district, let alone this tavern where a half dozen scarred men are eyeing Wells and wondering how much of the money his clothes and the bulging pouch in his belt represent they'll be able to spend before the royal guard catches up to them. Which all means there can only be one reason why Wells is here.

He's here because Chloe has a talent.

Wells clears his throat. "Chloe...Price." His voice is even richer than his clothes. "I am here on behalf of his majesty, King Nathan Prescott. Is there somewhere we can discuss...business?"

Chloe laughs, not bothering to open her eyes fully. "I'm not moving, so...talk if you want. Or fuck off, if you'd prefer."

Her talent has never been making polite conversation, but the kind of conversation Wells wants shouldn't be polite. What he's going to ask for, the only thing Chloe can offer the world, it isn't something that should be wrapped up in politeness to hide how ugly it is.

"Goodwoman Price..." Wells' temple throbs and his eyes skitter over Chloe's cup. "If your current inability to move is the issue, I have several able bodied men outside who would gladly assist you."

"Ooh, a Royal Guard escort?" Chloe laughs again. "They won't thank you for making them try."

Wells' lips compress and he simmers for a moment, but his only choice is to give in or go away. Chloe doesn't care what decision he makes. Wells frowns, then moves closer, placing his hand on the table so he can lean in closer to Chloe's ear. He winces at the sticky surface, but he only lets questions of what fluids made the table so sticky distract him briefly. 

"The realm is in peril," he intones, injecting an impressive amount of gravity into his whisper.

Chloe refuses to let it pull her in. She remains immobile and impassive. It earns her a sigh, which makes her smirk. "It seemed fine this morning. I suspect it'll keep until I've finished my drink."

"There is a threat which, if left unchecked, could mean the ruin of everything--"

"Oh, gods! Tell me a name," Chloe says, yawning. "And I'll tell you my price."

He pauses for a moment. "They say that you can kill anything..."

Chloe prefers not to correct him, but the truth is it's not that she _can_ kill _anything_ , it's that she _does_ kill _everything_. Eventually. Eventually everything she gets close to, Chloe kills.

It's a talent that makes her sought out so that a name can be whispered in her ear and otherwise makes her shunned. It's a talent she can temper, but never control. Nothing good lasts long in Chloe's presence, which is why she's given up seeking anything good out. It's why she prefers taverns like this and the company of those who would gladly kill her if they didn't know better than to try. Someone always does anyway, of course, and that's when they all find out that nothing much lasts at all, when Chloe wills it not to.

Except herself. The only thing her talent doesn't touch is Chloe herself.

Chloe scratches her armpit through her crumpled shirt.

"I don't have a name to give you," Wells intones, leaning closer. "But I need someone who can kill _anything_. That's who the realm needs."

There's something in Wells' tone that slips past the indifference she wears like a cloak and makes Chloe sit up, open her eyes and stare into his. "They _do_ say I can kill anything. And no one's called any of them a liar yet. What aren't you saying to me?"

Wells studies her, as she studies him. Up close, the seams of his face are a record of a life of responsibilities shouldered to little advantage of his own. "If you come with me, I can show you where your talent is needed."

Chloe shrugs, but she gets up and motions at the door, ignoring the relief that flashes across his face. She feels no loyalty to the Prescotts, bastards and butchers all, and little sympathy for those like Wells who do. But she knows that Nathan Prescott would never risk seeking her out himself. Wells, for his loyalty, will part from Chloe with a deeper thirst than ever. He was always likely to die by the bottle, but it's certain now, and certain to happen a year or two sooner than it might have.

She doesn't feel guilt for advancing him along the path of his destruction. It's a fact of who Chloe is, not something she can ever change. But she doesn't feel any need to make Wells' life harder at this point, so she follows him without protest. 

Besides, curiosity fills her mouth with a sweeter taste than the ale ever did.

* * *

Wells has an escort of six Royal Guard, all wearing shiny chainmail and red-and-yellow tabards, all scowling at Chloe and gripping at the hilts of their swords. Chloe makes a point of feigning drunkenness and jostling a few of them on her way out of the tavern. She smirks in satisfaction at the thought that their chainmail will rust and the colours of their tabards run the next time it rains.

Wells says nothing, but his lips compress and the skin around his eyes tightens as he leads her through the dirt-strewn streets, his escort surrounding Wells and Chloe both. It doesn't take long for them to reach their destination: a crumbling tower, once part of Arcadia's outer walls. Now it is an obstinate pile of stone surrounded by houses in what is one of many districts to have been thrown up as the city prospered and sprawled out over too much land for any wall to be able to protect.

Dilapidated as the tower is, it theoretically is property of the crown and as such has a surprisingly sturdy door with an impressively large iron lock. Wells produces a ring of keys from inside his robe, grunting as he fumbles his way through them. He catches Chloe staring, and grunts again.

"It's old, and not in good repair. It's kept locked so people won't climb it and fall to their deaths. Ah!" He finds the right key, unlocking the door with an effort that suggests there's rust in the lock. The hinges shriek when Wells shoulders the door open, revealing the foot of a winding staircase. Each step is so worn in the middle Chloe can see gaps between them.

Wells clears his throat. "It'll be safe enough for the two of us. We're going to the top."

Chloe counts thirty steps to the top, willing each of them to remain solid beneath her feet.

On the top of the tower is a platform of rotting wood that Chloe wouldn't trust to hold her slight weight, let alone Wells' bulk, even without the knowledge that her talent is working its way into the wood and stone beneath her, widening the gaps that, once wide enough, will bring the whole thing down. The tower collapsing won't kill her, but it will be deeply fucking embarrassing and awkward. It'll likely kill other people, too, to no advantage of Chloe's, so she decides she doesn't want to be up here for long. She's about to ask Wells what the point of this excursion was when he joins her, planks creaking with every one of his steps.

"There," he says, stabbing a finger at the horizon.

"What?" Chloe shades her eyes against the morning sun and looks out to where he's pointing. "There's nothing there. Just...dark clouds. I'm really starting to regret abandoning my drink. Maybe you should explain, before you regret it, too."

"Not clouds, Goodwoman Price. A storm."

Chloe stares at him.

He stares back, his expression grave.

"You...want me to kill the fucking _weather_?"

"It is no ordinary storm," Wells says wearily, mopping sweat from his brow with a silk handkerchief. "It appeared nearly three weeks ago, as a speck in the distance to us. To the people of the village on the bay, it was considerably larger. It rolled off the sea like a giant's fist, shattering everything in its path. The villagers survived, but little else did. They fled, and they brought...stories with them."

Chloe makes an impatient gesture, urging him on.

"They said the storm destroyed the village, and then...stopped moving. We've sent agents of the crown to investigate, and it's true. The storm is still centred around the village, but it's--"

"What village?" Wells pauses, his mouth agape. Chloe rolls her eyes. "What was its name?"

"That doesn't seem to matter now, does it? It's gone." Wells waits, seemingly oblivious to the groans of the wood supporting his weight. When Chloe says nothing, Wells presses on. "The storm isn't moving, but it _is_ growing in size. Wind and rain and lightning...it's ruining crops, killing livestock, destroying homes. If something isn't done..."

"Yeah, it might fuck up somewhere with a _name_."

"The storm, and whoever is behind it, are a clear threat to the realm!" Wells snaps, his face reddening. "I am acting in the interests of the crown to _protect_ the realm! We sent a dozen agents into the storm, and not one of _them_ came back! So spare me your mockery masquerading as outrage, and help me! Help your king. Help the realm. Find whoever is responsible for this storm, kill them, and _end it_."

Chloe looks away from him, out to the horizon where the storm is like a bruise on the sky. It looks like it has grown already, though perhaps it merely looms larger in Chloe's mind than in fact. Is a storm something she could destroy? More likely it would destroy her, Chloe thinks. That's an outcome Wells has predicted, no doubt, and one he considers acceptable, if not desirable.

Looking at the storm and listening to the tower protest her presence with a chorus of tiny sounds fills her with a clean, cold anger. She makes no effort to hide it when she says, "Do you know the names of the agents you sent to their deaths?"

"They were led by a Captain Graham," Wells growls, after a brief pause. "He did his duty with no expectation of reward. We're offering _you_ 500 gold Royals."

It's a fortune, by Chloe's standards. It's a fortune by almost anyone's standards. Enough to buy a home, a farm, a place in the world. But anything such a fortune might give her she'd only have to watch rot around her. Chloe has a talent, after all, and that talent is her curse.

"I've never tried to kill weather before." She faces him, putting on an insolent smirk. "I'll do it. I'll collect my payment when the job's done."

Wells lets out a shaky sigh. "Very well. You can have your pick out of our stables. I have provisions already prepared, and two agents ready to provide an escort for--"

"No." Chloe waves his words away. "I work alone. And I prefer to walk. I'll take the food, and a flask of fine wine, and a writ with the Royal Seal so no one gets in my way. I could use an oilcloth cloak, for the rain. Hmm, and you'd better make it three flasks of wine. Oh, and some masons, too."

Wells shakes his head, wrestling with a number of protests. What emerges first from his mouth though is a question. "Masons? Why would you need masons?"

"I don't." Chloe makes for the stairs, each footfall raising a groan or a creak. "This tower does. It'll collapse before evening, and I'm sure you wouldn't it to hurt any of the good people of the realm, would you?"

Wells makes no answer to that, but he presses close behind Chloe on their descent, so close she can feel his breath on her neck the whole way down.

* * *

Chloe wears a sword in her belt when she travels, as a deterrent to anyone who might seek to harm a young woman alone on the roads. Chloe has never unsheathed her blade; the sword is locked into its scabbard with rust now, less use than the stick a child's imagination conjures into a weapon of legend.

Six days of walking takes her from the heart of the city to the edge of the storm. The road is well maintained, and she's wearing her favourite boots--ones her fondness has maintained in a worn but comfortable state for a nearly a month now--so it's an easy enough journey. The land gently undulates, but is largely flat, green and boring. Chloe is stopped twice by King Prescott's knights, those charged with protecting the royal roads. The writ Wells reluctantly gave her keeps those encounters brief, though the parchment has become brittle when Chloe folds it up and tucks it into her blouse after the second encounter, four days from the city.

The next day, she encounters brigands who decide an effective way to counter her sword is to hide in a copse of apple trees and fill her with arrows when she passes. It's a fine plan, as far as it goes, but it goes no further than the arrows they loose at Chloe being reduced to ash when they are still inches from her skin. It rouses her from a travel-induced apathy to a sudden rage. Quick as she is to clamp down on the feeling, it's enough to cause the apples to slough from their branches, dripping to the earth as foul-smelling puddles. It's enough, too, for a fleeing brigand to trip on a tree root and impale himself on his own dagger. Chloe makes no effort to chase after the others. They'll spread word to avoid her in future. Such futures as they have will be much shorter, too, for crossing her path and risking her temper. 

That night, Chloe beds down at the side of the road and drinks a whole flask of soured wine.

An hour after she wakes, Chloe reaches the edge of the storm.

* * *

She spends half an hour standing under a clear sky, watching rain fall ten feet in front of her in a steady, persistent drizzle. It's as if an invisible wall keeps the rain partitioned from Chloe's side of the road. Further along, the rain falls more heavily, obscuring Chloe's vision of what's ahead.

When she's satisfied the weather is as unnatural as Wells declared it, Chloe pulls her sword from her belt, still in its scabbard, and tosses it ahead of her. It sails through the air, landing with a muted clatter on the road ahead, under the rain. Chloe watches for another few seconds, but if anything bad is happening to her sword, it's happening too slowly for Chloe's exhausted patience. She takes the cloak Wells provided for her out of her pack, finding it largely intact, and puts it on. She draws the hood over her head, and steps into the rain.

Other than her trews getting damp where the cloak doesn't protect them, nothing bad happens. 

When Chloe reaches her sword, she kicks it into a ditch beside the road and walks on, her long legs carrying her swiftly over the smooth, rain-slick surface.

* * *

A few hours up the road the rain is heavy enough to bow her back and so thick she almost walks past a group of tents hunched miserably in what was once a wheat field. It's only when a voice calls out that Chloe realises that there's anything other than the rain and her misery for company.

"Halt!" A man's voice, making up for his lack of aggression with uncertainty. "The road ahead is...you can't go this way."

Chloe turns, craning her neck awkwardly to make out a squat man wearing the king's colours on his tunic. He isn't wearing armour, but he carries both sword and parrying dagger in his belt. His face is pale beneath the brim of a leather hat, showing a rash of stubble on his jaw and chin. His eyes stare through Chloe, focused on some distant point on his mental horizon.

"Yeah?" Chloe says, her voice raspy with lack of use. "I've got a piece of paper from your king that says I can go where I want."

He slowly frowns, shakes his head more slowly still. "No. No, it isn't safe. It's dangerous up ahead."

"You've gone further up the road?" Chloe walks towards him, ducking a little to meet his eye level. "What's there?"

"Huh?" He blinks, and focuses on her at last. There are dark rings under his eyes. They look like bruises against the pallor of his skin. "No, we haven't, we just got...we're camping here for the rest of the night. We'll be setting out in the morning. You should turn back."

Chloe stares at him, then looks around. The sky is hidden behind layers of ash-grey clouds, but it's still early afternoon, with hours of daylight left. There are six tents, all dirty and sagging on their guy ropes. The mud around them is full of boot prints, overlaid over each other many times. "...when did you get here?"

The sentry's mouth twitches. "This evening."

"Who's your commander?" Chloe asks, though she thinks she knows the answer to that question, if none of the others multiplying in her mind. "I think I'd better speak to him."

"Captain Graham," the sentry murmurs. He shakes himself suddenly, spraying water like a dog, and fumbles his sword into his hand. He screams, "Captain Graham!"

The tents begin to shudder, the flaps parting, allowing King Prescott's agents spill out onto the mud. They form a ring around Chloe, but their movements are sluggish. They're all fully dressed, but it's as if they just woke up. A quick glance around tells Chloe that if this is the twelve that Wells mentioned, they're all still alive and physically unharmed. But the men all sport several days worth of ungroomed facial hair, and each man and woman of them looks as hollow-eyed as the sentry.

A man with a boyish face, one who looks like the youngest of the group, walks up to Chloe. "I'm Captain Warren Graham. What's your business here?"

Chloe licks her lips, casting another glance around her. No one has drawn a weapon--yet. But it's a little unnerving to be at the centre of a circle of people, most of whom are staring right through her. "The crown's. I'm here to kill the storm, on behalf of Wells."

"Lord Wells?" He frowns, maybe in confusion, maybe because Chloe didn't use Wells' proper title. "We were despatched three days ago. We've just arrived! Why would he..." His frown deepens. "You don't have a horse. You couldn't have caught up to us in time! You're lying."

Chloe licks her lips, looking warily around. Captain Graham's tone has awakened a response in his soldiers: hostility. Steel scrapes against leather as they draw their blades. Chloe is considering the merits of running rather than killing twelve people who appear to be under some kind of spell, when she notices something about the camp that makes her face Captain Graham again and speak urgently. "Where are _your_ horses?"

He blinks, his frown slipping off his face to leave mild puzzlement. "What? Ah...horses?"

"Wells offered me the pick of the royal stables," Chloe says quickly. "But I prefer to walk. You, though. Would he send you out on foot? For an urgent mission? You rode here. You say you just got here, but if that's so, where are your horses?" Chloe thrusts a finger at the sentry who stopped her. "He said you got here this evening, that you're waiting out the night. But it's afternoon. There's still daylight left. Why the delay, captain?"

He raises a hand, signalling his soldiers. He scratches his chin. "I have no idea. This...this doesn't make sense. Did Lord Wells really send you?"

"He did." Chloe carefully produces the royal writ from inside her shirt. 

Warren unfolds it carefully, his brow furrowing as he reads. When he's done, he tries to refold it but the rain proves fatal after days in close proximity to Chloe's skin. Warren stares at the wad of disintegrating parchment in disbelief. He tucks into a pouch in his belt. "My apologies. I didn't think the rain would--not that _quickly_."

Chloe shrugs. "You read it. You know I'm cloaked in royal approval more snug than my oilcloth. And since you don't seem to know anything else, I'll be on my way."

"Wait!" Warren licks his lips, looking around him at the disarray of his camp and his command. "Wait. Something is...there's something very wrong here. How long have we been here?"

"Two weeks, maybe."

"That can't be!" He scrubs his face with his hand, his flesh becoming pink, making him look younger stil. "But it is, isn't it? And if that's so...have we been sitting here this whole time?"

The sentry who stopped Chloe lets out a cry. He drops first his sword and the himself into the mud, landing on his knees. "We waded through the road when it turned into mud, but it seized our feet and forced us to walk backwards! How...how many times did we try? There was nothing, nothing ahead! There will always be nothing!"

All around Chloe, Warren's people start to babble or cry out. Some clutch their heads, others weep, one says, "No, there _was_ something..." then crumples like dry autumn leaves under a boot heel, collapsing into the mud.

"Not something." Warren grinds the heel of his hand into one of his eyes. The other stares into something impossible. Blood begins to trickle from his nostrils. "A girl...a girl with eyes like a clear, blue sky."

He looks around him wildly, clutching at his sword hilt. Then his eyes roll into his head, his knees give way and he falls into the mud. All around Chloe, the soldiers under Captain Graham's command first fall silent, then fall to the cold, sucking earth.

Chloe checks to make sure that they're still breathing, using her boot to roll a couple of them onto their backs. Then, since further ministrations from her won't prove healing, Chloe leaves their camp and continues her trudge towards the centre of the storm.

In her mind, she carries a picture of her enemy: a girl with blue eyes. In her gut, Chloe carries an unravelling sense of something she hasn't felt since the moment she realised her father would never wake again: dread.

* * *

The road stops before she reaches the village that Wells couldn't name. It doesn't fade into a path or a track, it simply...stops, the stone giving way to lush, verdant grass untouched by wheel or hoof or boot.

Chloe chews her lip, thinking. "Fuck it," she concludes at length, addressing her fear and the rain and the vanishing road and the gods who cursed her.

The only thing that happens as a consequence of pushing on is that Chloe gets more waterlogged and miserable, and that her feet slip from time to time. She falls once, her worn heel sliding on the slick turf, her back thudding against the softened ground. Chloe curses, rolling over and clambering to her feet slow and awkward under her heavy cloak. She pauses, her jaw tight, as the grass around her withers. She sighs, standing up and adjusting her cloak to cover her. She scrapes water from her eyebrows, flicking the accumulated drops away, then freezes.

All around her, the withered grass slowly becomes supple and vibrant again.

"How...?" Chloe swallows, her stomach shrinking and her heart beating much too quickly. What she does has never been undone, _can't_ be undone. Death comes to everything in Chloe's proximity, and her hope was no exception. "No. No, I'm not getting distracted."

She begins walking again, and even in the haze that the rain makes, even without a road to guide her, Chloe knows she's getting closer to the heart of things. There is a power in the air that makes the hairs on the nape of her neck and on her arms stand up, that makes her teeth ache and her bones hum.

Perhaps twenty minutes after she fell, a shape looms out of the haze, a shape too large and regular to be anything other than a building. Ten minutes after that, Chloe is walking on packed dirt between a blacksmith's and a tavern. A minute later, she's standing by a well in what looks to be the centre of what looks to be a very average village. The well is situated in a rough square, surrounded by timber buildings.

It isn't raining here, but the air is thick with suppressed violence and the clouds above look angry and ready to spit lightning. Chloe lowers her hood and looks around, knowing she's close and yet not sure what she's close _to_.

A moment later, though, she finds out. A door in a modest, even ramshackle, house opens. A woman emerges warily into the square, young and small and slim and pretty. Her hair is brown and messy, her skin pale and dusted with freckles, her eyes tired and a blue that in an instant becomes the shade against which Chloe will measure all others.

The woman stares at Chloe, wringing her hands nervously. "Hello."

"Hi," Chloe says, her voice cracking. "Are you...okay?"

"Am _I_ okay?" The woman blinks. Slowly, she shakes her head. "No. I think I'm cursed. And you should go. You should run from here, because...because it's not safe."

"It's not safe." Chloe slowly nods. "Because of the storm."

"Yeah." She sighs, her body slumping. "The storm."

"Is...did you make it? The storm, I mean?"

Chloe hopes that answer will be no, so she isn't surprised when the woman screws her eyes shut and nods.

" _Yes_." Tears glisten in the corners of her eyes. "I never meant for this to happen, but it does. It always does, no matter what I do, and I tried to stop it, but it only makes it worse." She opens her eyes, fixing a pleading look on Chloe. "I don't think I can hold it back much longer. You _need_ to go. Please!"

"What about you?"

"I'm...I don't know. I won't leave. I just want this to end..."

Chloe nods again. Wells wants it to end, too. He wants Chloe to end the storm, and this woman, this woman who claims she's cursed and who claims she caused it. Chloe knows that Wells would want her to kill the woman first, then deal with the storm. She wonders if that's what Captain Graham would do. Or if that's what Captain Graham already _tried_ to do.

Chloe knows that this woman is dangerous. She can sense the power, immense and alive and coiled around her.

She's so small, though, and she looks so tired, and she thinks her power is a curse.

Chloe finds she has no desire to hasten the other woman's end. She walks around the well towards her, keeping her hands visible and her steps measured. Softly, Chloe asks, "What's your name?"

The woman blinks. "...Maxine. Max."

"Max." Chloe nods a third time. "I want to hear your story, Max. And I'm already soaked, so a little more weather doesn't scare me. I'm staying."

Something like hope kindles in Max's eyes. it hurts to see it, because Chloe can only wonder how long it will be until she kills that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I make no promises about part 2, beyond...2020!
> 
> I'll try not to leave any of us hanging too long, though. In the meantime, I would crave this boon: a comment, with your thoughts all written in the box conveniently provided for the purpose!


End file.
